By: Michael Underdown

Fiber optic networks are more vital to the digital economy than ever. Innovations in high-definition (HD) video, IoT (Internet of Things), Machine Learning (ML) and AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications are placing increasing demands on the network infrastructure. In addition to the increasing capacity demands, enterprises are requiring more scalability, security and low latency performance to run their cloud applications. The drivers of fiber connectivity growth extend across data center and multi-cloud networking, edge computing, smart appliances, telecommuting, telemedicine, remote learning, e-commerce, and other applications. Meanwhile, enterprises are under increasing pressure to reduce costs, increase efficiencies, lower carbon emissions, and ensure the enterprise is protected from malicious actors.

As digital strategies reach a more mature phase of evolution, IT leaders are encountering a new wave of bandwidth intensive applications largely driven by the steep adoption curve of cloud IT and AI. Over the last 20 years, they have been fine tuning their network infrastructures to enable IaaS, SaaS, PaaS, UCaaS and other as-a-service applications. Looking ahead, they are trying to grasp the networking requirements for emerging cloud services such as AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS). According to the industry research firm, OMDIA, monthly enriched AI network traffic is forecast to grow 120 percent CAGR, from 0.6 exabytes to 148 exabytes, during the 2023 to 2030 period. These trends in data networking have significant implications for the capacity requirements to connect data centers as well as enterprise locations, devices, and clouds with fiber optic network infrastructure playing a key facilitating role. At the infrastructure level, IndustryArc estimates that the dark fiber market will grow globally at 13.1 percent CAGR between 2024 and 2030.

The Advantages of a Fiber Optic Network Infrastructure

Fiber connectivity is the underpinning of an enterprise’s digital platform. It offers numerous advantages compared to other facilities-based networking technologies. Its high-speed capabilities drive increased worker productivity. Fiber optic transmission is inherently more reliable, offering enterprises up to 100% network availability guarantees. The signal strength of fiber is less susceptible to degradation, enabling higher quality transport of applications. The higher bandwidth and low latency capabilities more easily facilitate the transmission of bandwidth intensive applications such as HD video, file sharing, voice, and web conferencing, helping improve worker collaboration, supply chain efficiencies and the customer experience. Fiber networks are more difficult to penetrate and less vulnerable to hacking. The superior scalability of fiber optic networks is another advantage that is especially critical to supporting an enterprise’s cloud strategy and business objectives.

Fiber Connectivity to the Data Center

Data centers and fiber optic networks combined form the backbone of our digital infrastructure, enabling enterprises to meet the growing demands for data storage and transmission. High performance computing (HPC) and graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters have become common parlance for today’s IT leaders as AI applications ramp up. The increased capacity requirements of this new generation of servers have placed greater demands on the enterprise network infrastructure. Scaling the operational infrastructure and meeting the increased energy consumption needs in an environmentally friendly manner are key challenges to AI adoption. The large-size AI data flows generated in dense GPU clusters can lead to significant latencies and prolong workload completion times, which results in compromised application performance and user experiences. In addition to the emerging AI applications, data center interconnects need to be precisely calibrated to efficiently transport cloud computing, big data, IoT, and other bandwidth intensive applications. As optical switching technology advances to speeds of 800G and 1.6T to meet the capacity and scalability required for the proliferation of data center and enterprise WAN applications, coupled with fiber facilities containing increasingly higher strand counts, state-of-the-art fiber optic networks provide the performance and efficiency characteristics to cost effectively transport this widening array of applications.

Key Industry Applications – Fintech, Healthcare, and Education

The network has become a more critical component of an enterprise’s IT strategy and operational platform across all industries. Enterprise dependence on reliable and secure connectivity became especially pronounced during the Covid-19 pandemic. This trend, coupled with AI and other forms of technological innovation, has given fiber connectivity a heightened value in today’s businesses. According to estimates produced by OpenVault, upstream usage on broadband networks has grown 153 percent over a five-year period between 2018 and 2023, with commercial users generating over 70 percent more upstream data than residential users. The factors contributing to this difference included businesses’ reliance on data-intensive applications such as file transfers, video conferencing, and cloud-based applications.